Trees are still mostly green as we pass the midpoint of September here in Vancouver, but the first few leaves are starting to change. I decided to take the opportunity to paint with my 2023 fall foliage palette and see if I can refine the colors to make it an even better palette for autumn leaves.
My method here was to gather a bunch of leaves from the ground under a big red maple, then bring them home to paint. Stopping first for a seasonal latte!
Here are my leaf studies. I took note of the colors used for each leaf.
Let’s take it leaf by leaf, in the order in which I painted them. (I’m left-handed, so I tend to paint left to right.)
Colors:
- DS New Gamboge (PY97, PY110)
- DS Quinacridone Red (PV19)
- DV Perylene Red (PR149)
- SH Perylene Violet (PV29)
- DS Phthalo Turquoise (PB15, PG36) – only for shadow (combined with Perylene Violet)
A New Gamboge under painting with Quin Red glazed over makes a lovely bold red. When it was wet, I really liked the Perylenes Scarlet (PR149) and Violet (PV29) dropped in to make deeper color, but when it dried they both became splotchy and washed out.
Colors:
- DV Perylene Red (PR149)
- SH Perylene Violet (PV29)
- DS Rich Green Gold (PY129)
- DS Indanthrone Blue (PB60)
I tried the Perylenes again with better water control. This came out better, though again I much preferred the more saturated colors wet than the somewhat brownish appearance of the Perylene Violet when dry. The Rich Green Gold did a great job of cutting into the red to draw in veins when semi-wet, and was a good color match for the muted lime color of the actual leaf’s veins. Shadow from a mix of all the colors.
Colors:
- DS Quin Red (PV19)
- DS Perylene Red (PR178)
- DS Indanthrone Blue (PB60)
- Mijello Green Gold (PY150) [Nickel Azo Yellow]
This leaf appeared to me to have a layer of lighter pinky-red with deeper red speckled on top, so that’s how I painted it, using Quin Red for the underpainting. I was tempted to use Perylene Violet for the deeper red-violet glaze, but since I had not really liked how it turned out in the previous leaves, I instead mixed a new Perylene, the PR178 middle red, with Indanthrone Blue. Ultimately this was a similar effect but because it had a bit less drying shift, I was able to judge it more accurately when wet. I also liked how I could bring it slightly cooler. Nickel Azo Yellow was used lightly to drizzle in some yellowish veins. Shadow is a mix of all colors.
Colors:
- DS Quinacridone Magenta (PR202)
- DS Transparent Pyrrol Orange (PO71)
- Mijello Green Gold (PY150) [Nickel Azo Yellow]
- DS Indanthrone Blue (PB60) [only stem and shadow]
I decided to abandon Perylenes and blues temporarily and try something else to make a deep, intense red that would hopefully not dry desaturated. In previous years I have used Bordeaux (PV32), but this is a fairly fugitive color so this time I tried PR202, a slightly deeper magenta than you get from PV19 or PR122. Mixed with Transparent Orange, it makes a very intense crimson.
While this mixed crimson does not get dark as the mixes with Perylene Violet or Indanthrone Blue, it is still noticeably deeper than typical middle reds. In a similar way to real leaves, it seems to simultaneously/alternately appear cranberry-colored and a deep rusty orange. I really like this combination!
Again, I used PY150 to draw in veins and Indanthrone Blue to deepen the stem and mix with the other colors to mix a shadow gray. I didn’t use any Indanthrone Blue in the main leaf.
Colors:
- SH Aureolin Hue (PY151)
- HO Phthalo Blue Red Shade (PB15)
- DS Quin Red (PV19)
The power of a triad!
I feel like I was correct in identifying Phthalo Blue RS as an important fall blue in my seasonal triads post, because mixed with the yellow it made the perfect hue and saturation of yellowed-leaf green.
I think of autumn colors as being warm, but in reality I felt that the yellow of this leaf was on the cool side and the pinkish tones in it were also closer to Quin Red than, say, scarlet or even Quin Coral.
All three colors mixed were effective at lowering the chroma and creating shadows.
Colors:
- WN Gold Ochre (PY42)
- DS Indanthrone Blue (PB60)
- DS Transparent Pyrrol Orange (PO71)
- DS Quin Red (PV19)
By now these colors are starting to look familiar. The innovation here is using Gold Ochre as the yellow, to lend a more earthy muted gold color that I really like (and fit this particular leaf well). Once again I think the coral-ish mixes from Quin Red with the yellow or orange make lovely and exciting reds.
Again the shadow is a mix of all the colors. I allowed the Quin Red and Indanthrone Blue to dominate, making a violet-ish shadow that contrasts nicely with the Gold Ochre.
The next day I painted some more assorted leaves from around the neighborhood, moving further away from the red theme.
Oak leaf: For a deeper yellow, I mixed Hansa Yellow Medium (PY97) and Gold Ochre. Again, PBRS makes the lime green color. PR202 magenta is used only in the shadow.
Green planetree leaf: A mix of Hansa Yellow Medium and PBRS is used for the perfect green, while Gold Ochre is perfect for the brownish tones of decay. This is the only study where I didn’t use the colors in the painting itself for the shadow, instead using a palette gray already on my palette.
Speckled red-and-yellow silver maple leaf: I was too impatient to do justice to the wild high-contrast patterns of this crazy leaf, but I do think that color-wise, Azo Yellow and Quin Red were correct. Again PBRS is used for the green.
Conclusion
This was a great exercise for identifying or reaffirming some all-star colors for my autumn palette, and trying out others. There is no replacement for painting from life! In a future post I’ll review my autumn palette picks.